


Dance with Her Ghosts

by maenad9



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fantasy, Fluff and Angst, GHOST!, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-08
Updated: 2020-04-26
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:27:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 6,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23538352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maenad9/pseuds/maenad9
Summary: We all get a little sad sometimes...Small scenes from Sansa's perspective, all relating to Theon / their relationship. Largely focused on the days preceding and immediately following the battle against the Night King-- the fight in which Theon died. He lives on, in Sansa's mind, a mix of memory and fantasy.Love can give life to loss.CW: references to RB, and what S + T endured at his hands; initially in passing, possibly more graphic as the fic goes on.Note: Some scenes may occur entirely in Sansa's imagination, while others retell / fill in the gaps between what we see in the show.
Relationships: Arya Stark & Sansa Stark, Theon Greyjoy/Sansa Stark
Comments: 7
Kudos: 14





	1. Alive in the Crypts

For a long time, what felt like a lifetime, it was chaos.

Women and children hid behind now-empty crypts, their terrified faces cast into shadow by the ornate tombs of Sansa’s ancestors. Tombs that held their occupants no more.

Sansa would never in all her life, long or, more likely, short, forget the sight of her Aunt Lyanna’s decayed and desiccated corpse clawing its way out from the side of her gravestone. She’d wondered, for an instant, whether her much beloved aunt would recognize her, by her father’s eyes or her mother’s hair— she’d wondered whether the resurrected dead would be true to their living selves, until that thing, that creature that could not be her aunt, turned and fixed its empty sockets on her.

Then, Sansa had screamed.

What happened next was now a blur— she’d remembered the dragonglass dagger in her hand, given to her not three hours ago by her sister, Arya, whom she could only pray had survived. Sansa had struck her aunt with its corrugated blade, reducing her skeleton to a heap of dust.

Tyrion had found her, pulling her back behind another crypt— her father’s, perhaps? She didn’t want to know what had become of _his_ body… but there had been a jagged hole in the side of that tomb, too.

The unholy howls of reanimated Stark corpses filled the low arches of the catacombs, echoing off the smooth-hewn stone. Torches flickered and died in the chaos, knocked over or extinguished in the madness. Shouts of women, wails of children as old as ten years and as young as ten days competed with the senseless battlecry of the newly awakened dead.

If they both survived the night, Sansa would have words with her half-brother.

What kind of fool locks the most vulnerable members of the population underground with the bodies of a hundred dead, or more, when the enemy possess magic enough to reanimate such corpses?

Jon hadn’t even thought to arm several of the women, let alone station guards down below with them. Sansa clutched the dagger until her knuckles formed white ridges, like snow-peaked mountains, over its hilt. Bless Arya for being the only one with a contingency plan.

But she couldn’t think of her strange, clever sister now. She couldn’t think of any of them— Jon, Brienne, Theon… The list went on and on, but her heart stopped at Theon’s name.

She could not lose him, not again. She would not lose him, not live on alone.

A life without Theon was an endless night, an eternal winter. Sansa might as well let her aunt’s wight take her.

But then she wouldn’t know his fate, would never again look on his sweet, scarred face…

 _I will not die,_ the Lady of Winterfell then resolved. _I will watch the break of day, beside him._

Tightening her grip on the dagger’s carved hilt, Sansa thumbed the sharp edge lightly. It was time to fight: for her life, for her people, for her love.


	2. A Sister's Confession

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sansa emerges from the crypts, only to meet her sister in the hall. Alive, and bearing bad news.

Sansa struggled up the wide and winding stair that led to the crypts’ only exit. Her skirt caught on the many bodies, long-dead and freshly slain, that had fallen as they sought escape. One hand pressed against the ice-cold stone, Sansa barely noticed her blood-soaked hem. She was singularly focused on the sound of her younger sister’s voice.

“Arya! Arya!” She gasped, the foul stench of death only worsening as she approached the reinforced, dead-bolted door. “We’re alive,” she half-cried, half-sobbed, struggling to shove the heavy beam free. “Arya, are you alright?”

Her sister’s response was muffled, but Sansa’s relief was palpable at simply hearing the other’s voice— whatever harm had befallen Arya, it had not been enough to kill her. And that, Sansa acknowledged, fresh tears welling in her eyes, was all she could ask of the old gods.

To her left, Tyrion added his strength to Sansa’s, and the once-wedded pair were aided by Varys to the right. With some exertion, they were able to lift the wide wooden bolt and unlock the heavy door to the crypts.

Sansa fell forwards, tripping over a disembodied arm in her haste to embrace her sister. Arya, her face streaked with soot and blood, caught her older sister and held her in an uncharacteristically tight hug. Something— many things— must’ve shaken her, for Arya to betray such a depth of disturbed emotion. Sansa pulled back and clutched her little sister’s shoulders, hard enough to hurt, had she stopped to think about it.

“What’s happened? Is it over? Are you hurt? Where’s Jon? Is Bran safe? And Brienne— did Brienne fall? No, no she couldn’t have… Please, tell me she isn’t dead! Tell me, Arya, tell me what’s happened!”

Sansa heaved deep breaths that bordered on sobs, gasping for air in the stunned silence that followed her rapid, tattered string of questions.

Behind her, she heard Tyrion ask very quietly after a respectful pause, “My lady… have you any news of my brother? I believe he was assigned to the left flank, commanded by Ser Brienne.”

Sansa bit back an impatient, angry remark about the irrelevance of a Lannister’s wellbeing as Arya nodded and began to answer Tyrion’s question.

“He’s fine, actually— as is she—” her grey eyes darted to Sansa’s and she nodded briefly, reassuringly. One of the knots in Sansa’s stomach uncoiled itself, and she began to breathe a little more evenly.

“They couldn’t hold the field, but they killed hundreds of wights once the Night King’s army breached the castle walls. You’ll find them resting on the west ramparts.”

Tyrion took his leave of the two women, and hurried to the nearest stairwell. Varys had disappeared back down the stairs, and faintly Sansa heard him helping the surviving children out of hiding. She should be down there, too, but her heart was still too heavy for her to move.

Jon was probably fine, Sansa reasoned, as Arya didn’t seem distraught— he had always been her favorite, and vice versa. Confirming her suspicions, Arya continued, “Jon’s exhausted, but he’s fine. I think he’s helping with the bodies.” ‘

Sansa exhaled in her relief. Another knot, another point of tension eased.

“His plan worked, you know. Barely, but…” Arya shrugged

Sansa glanced sharply at her sister. “But Bran… you said he’s safe— how?”

Arya smiled slightly, not warm but grimly satisfied. “I took care of it. Of him.”

“Him?”

“The Night King.”

Sansa’s mouth fell open of its own accord. Of course, it made perfect sense— there was no one, truly no one more qualified or better able to assassinate the older-than-men, murderous, magical, ice-made monstrosity. Nevertheless, she was more impressed than she had words to articulate.

Sensing her sister’s awe and confusion, Arya took Sansa’s hand and squeezed it. But she didn’t let go, as she normally would have. That was Sansa’s first clue that something was still very wrong. 

“I’ll tell you that story later, when you’ve had time to process everything…” Arya shifted in her worn boots, still not relinquishing her sister’s hand. “There’s something you need to know, Sans.”

Sansa felt her face turn white as the now falling snow. “What is it? Tell me, quickly!”

“Before I arrived, before even the Night King king arrived in the Godswood…”

“The Ironborn, what of the Ironborn?” she interrupted, impatient in her fear.

Arya grimaced. “They fought with the strength of ten men, each. Killed hundreds of wights, kept Bran safe through the night. But they fell, one by one…”

“Theon. Tell me he’s safe, tell me he didn’t—” the words came out on a gasp, as Sansa didn’t dare say that word.

Arya sighed and reached for her sister’s other hand. She held onto both tightly as she spoke. “Bran says he was the best of them all.”

Sansa’s knees buckled at her sister’s use of the past tense, but she was silent, hanging on her sister’s every word.

“He killed hundreds of those creatures on his own, never once letting the perimeter slip.” Arya swallowed. “And when every other Ironborn was dead, overwhelmed, he fought on. He made sure Bran survived unscathed.”

Sansa nodded, her vision wavering as her eyes began to overflow with tears. Tears that froze to sludge when they reached her cold cheeks, tears that stung her sooty eyelashes. She knew what her sister was about to say, and a part of her didn’t want to hear the fact confirmed. She wasn’t sure if she’d survive the news.

But Sansa _was_ a survivor, she forced herself to remember with brittle resolve and a bitten lip, so she summoned every last scrap of her courage and nodded, signaling for her sister to go on.

Arya pressed her sister’s fingers in her own, warming them as much as she was able, before speaking again. “I know that you cared about him, Sansa.More than any of us did, or could possibly understand. I know that. And I’m sorry.”

Sansa felt herself start to collapse under the weight of this unwelcome information. She wished Arya would just say the words already, and she wanted to tell her to hurry up and be done with it— but when she opened her mouth, she found she could not speak. Voiceless, helpless, she pressed her lips together and simply listened.

“When the Night King finally arrived in the sacred clearing, his men stopped fighting. Bran— Bran told Theon that he was a good man, and thanked him. They both understood what was about to happen. Because Theon didn’t stand a chance against an eight-thousand year-old immortal, with magic at his fingertips and an ice-blade in his hand.”

Sansa nodded, numb. She, too, knew what was about to happen. And she was helpless to stop it, as she was helpless to stop the ugly flow of tears that now dripped from her nose and chin.

Theon. _Theon._ No, no— it couldn’t be. _Please!_ She sent up a desperate, silent plea to all the gods, old and new. But she knew as well as they did, that her prayer was too late.

“I saw what happened next,” Arya continued, her admission catching Sansa’s distraught attention. “I was hiding, waiting for the right moment to strike.” She paused, her expression pleading.

“You have to understand— if I had intervened an instant too soon, I wouldn’t have been able to kill him. And then Bran would be dead, and we all probably would be too, and Westeros would be doomed. You have to understand,” she said again, seeing the anger and accusation in her older sister’s eyes, “I couldn’t intervene. I couldn’t stop him from killing Theon.”

Sansa’s body went rigid at the admission. “Yes,” she whispered, although she knew the opposite was true, “you could have.”

“Sansa!” Arya’s voice was plaintive, but her sister had no time for another’s distress. She could not bring herself to salve the guilty conscience before her. Not yet.

“Where,” she bit out slowly, “is he?”


	3. Winter's Kiss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In her grief, Sansa imagines a long-awaited embrace before Castle Black's gates.

In her heart, she hadn’t left him. In her heart, he’d taken her hand. In her heart, they’d ridden together, hard and fast from enemy lands.

Sansa struggled to remember much of her secluded life before the horrors. She couldn’t imagine herself, young and spoilt and praying for a prince, falling head over heels for her father’s squire. Theon had been arrogant then, a self-proclaimed “ladies’ man,” and as prick as anything— he still had one, too.

She’d tried to envision their lives together, a thousand times, and failed. They wouldn’t have worked back then. Some roses bloomed in winter; their love had grown despite the long night of terror. Neither of them was the same, when it started to blossom, has they’d been when it took root.

Because it had started sooner than either of them had realized. A stolen glance in her father’s hall at supper; a flower absently embroidered while her mind flitted to him. She’d had a crush on him, although she never admitted it, but she hadn’t loved him— and he certainly hadn’t loved her, the bitchy best-friend’s-little-sister.

No, the love came later, after their hurt and humbling. When they were just two wounded animals, clinging to the warmth of familiar for lack of family. And so when Sansa imagined them together, it wasn’t as bright-eyed summer children, foolish and fortunate, but as their current selves, cautious survivors.

Well, not their _current_ selves. That was impossible. Sansa’s mind wouldn’t let her go there— and so her heart took her someplace else, instead…

_Castle Black, years back._

“Hurry, Lady Sansa, I can hear the wolves behind us.”

“But I’m so tired, Theon.”

He nodded, sorrowful eyes fixed on her figure.

“And besides,” Sansa paused, shivering, to listen. “I don’t think that’s an ordinary wolf.”

Theon’s brows knit together. “You don’t think…”

The appearance of Ghost, his white form flickering like a phantom against the snowy horizon, stopped that sentence before Theon could finish it.

“Ghost!” She cried, a thrill running down her spine. “Ghost, come here, it’s me!”

She slid off her horse, stiffly and not without pain. The movement was unpracticed after days of hard riding in the icy cold.

“Careful, my lady!” Came Theon’s panicked cry, as she winced and wobbled to stand. He, too, dismounted, and came with trepidation to her side. “Are you certain?” He asked, squinting.

Sansa scoffed, but the sound was wracked with shudders. Winter was hard, even on a Northern girl, and harder still when all your body knew was torture.

“Of course I do,” she protested, rolling her eyes at her companion. There was nothing genuinely judgmental about the gesture, however. Sansa returned her attention to the direwolf stalking toward them, swallowing a surge of affection and that tingling sensation that arose whenever Theon stood close to her.

When the wolf was near enough, Sansa extended a hand to stroke his fur. Ghost sniffed her, and seeming to recognize the scent, lowered his guard— and head. “Good boy,” she whispered, scratching behind his big white ears. She blinked back unexpected tears at the memory of her own wolf, born of the same litter, killed because of that wretched Lannister. Sansa sighed, cursing her teenage self for not listening to the direwolf’s deadly instincts. If only she’d given up on Joffrey then, things would’ve been so different…

Theon, ever attuned to even the slightest shifts in Sansa’s mood, crouched beside her, his cloak falling softly to the snow, overlapping onto hers. The touching fabric felt akin to skin contact, and Sansa shivered, not for the icy wind. Mistaking the movement, Theon cautiously shuffled closer, raising one arm to rest on her shoulders.

“We’re close, Lady Sansa,” he murmured. “You’ll be warm, soon.”

 _I’d be warm in your arms_ , came the thought unbidden. Sansa blushed, and hid her face in Ghost’s fur to conceal the sudden flash of need. Theon must have read her mind, however, because his hand moved to tuck a loose strand of auburn hair back into her unkempt braid. His gloved fingers brushed her cheek as he did so, and Sansa heard him suck in his breath at the contact.

“Come on, Sansa,” he repeated, without urgency. He sounded dazed, as if too focused on the soft surface of her hollow cheek to care much about where they were. Well, Sansa cared. Because if they were as close to Castle Black as Theon believed, and Ghost confirmed, she might never get the chance to kiss him again, unwatched by her brother or his men.

As fast as her frozen limbs would allow, she turned around to face her wordless lover. “Lover” might yet be too strong a word, but there was love kindling between them, and in this moment it _burned._ Sansa lifted her own hand to catch Theon’s, holding it in place as she rose to her feet, guiding him upright alongside her. She smiled as he straightened, and he thumbed the dimple her unpracticed expression made. He’d teased her about that dimple, once. Years, and horrors, ago.

“Sansa…?” The way he said her name was half-question, half-plea, and he whispered it with hoarse urgency.

Sansa stepped closer, careful not to crowd him without permission. He hesitated, eyes darting side to side in a cursory check on their safety. But they had Ghost to protect them, now, and keep watch. They were safe. They were free. At last, after days on the run, Sansa let herself realize the reality of those statements. She sighed, and smiled a little wider.

“Come here,” she whispered in answer, and Theon did as he was told, eyes widening at her words. He wanted this, too— that she knew. If the awe in his sea-green gaze wasn’t evidence enough, she’d seen his love for her brim over from a thousand other cups. They’d been waiting for a moment like this for so long, it hadn’t seemed likely to happen at all. But Sansa wouldn’t settle for waiting anymore.

Closing the space between their frigid forms, shivering now for another reason than the cold, Sansa stopped only when their chests brushed and their breath began to mingle. His other arm came to her waist, pulling her tight to him.

“I-I—” _Oh, seven hells._

Reading her mind as usual, Theon pressed his chapped lips to hers.

Their first kiss was sweet, and chaste, and over too soon. Sansa wanted more.


	4. Goodbye in the Godswood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Their last kiss was salty, not sweet. 
> 
> Finding and dressing the body.

Their last kiss was salty, not sweet. Still, it left Sansa wanting more.

She wanted him to kiss her back. She wanted him to take her in his arms. She wanted him to simply respond— but he couldn’t, because he was dead.

 _Did this kiss count?_ She wondered, as she let her lips linger on his brow. The skin she had cleaned with a sponge from the sea, spent hours stroking until the whole of him lay clean. If she could have been amused at this moment in time, she might have been. After all, it was probably the best bath he’d ever taken or been given, and Theon hadn’t even been awake for it.

Sansa hadn’t slept that morning. Instead, she’d sewn his many wounds closed, applied salve, and bandaged them. It was, she supposed, a waste of medical supplies, when they had yet to win the next war. But she couldn’t bear the thought of his injuries undressed— or worse, his unbreathing body touched by any hand but hers.

She knew she couldn’t heal him, knew it wouldn’t revive him. Sansa had smelled death on him as she worked. That, and the unnatural stillness of his figure when first she found him, was more than enough evidence to satisfy her. Rather, to hurt her. To rip her soul in two, again, along the jagged line where he had so sweetly helped to stitch the pieces of her broken self back together.

How was she supposed to live without him? How was she supposed to breathe?

When Arya had led the three of them— Jon, Bran, and Sansa— to where his bloodied body lay, still in the Godswood where he’d been slain, Sansa had felt as though she were dreaming. A waking nightmare, she’d say, if asked to describe their walk to the sacred grove that day. Surely Theon, her Theon, wasn’t dead— not slaughtered in a snowy clearing, the trodden ground stained red as the Weirwood leaves overhead?

Theon wasn’t supposed to die until after she did, ten winters from now in the happy heat of a long summer. Theon wasn’t supposed to die, ever.

When the four surviving Starks entered that cursed clearing, Sansa didn’t need Arya to identify the body. She stopped breathing when she saw him. Her eyes riveted to Theon’s unmoving form, his limbs folded in unnatural positions. Her chest constricted painfully. Tears sprang unbidden to her unfocused eyes, spilling hot and fast down her frozen cheeks.

“No,” was the only word she could choke out. In a double edged act of mercy, the gods must have slowed time itself, because Sansa crossed the frosted battlefield as if it were a snowdrift, her limbs frigid with the feel and knowledge of death. His death. _No._

She’d fallen to her knees beside her bloodied heart, who lay silent while she wept over him.

“No,” she repeated, in a hopeless litany.

“ _Please_ ,” she whispered, unholy pleas. 

“Come back to me.”

_“Theon!”_

“My sweet…”

Sansa didn’t care that she’d made a scene, didn’t care that her siblings saw all. She pressed a kiss to his bloodless lips, parted by the force of that final blow, and felt not just death’s chill but her own agony— fresh, with the confirmation of what she already knew.

She’d kissed him then, before witnesses. Professed her undying love in the Godswood. She kissed him now, in privacy. Too aware of her role as the Lady of Winterfell, too conscious of her people’s needs, to make a second scene. So she spent the night with Theon in her suite’s silent seclusion: cleaning his corpse and mending his clothes, dressing Theon’s body for burning.

Sansa understood, in her head, the critical role he had played. In many ways, he was as much the hero of Winterfell as Arya. Under-recognized as such, albeit. In her heart, however, she longed for the power to reverse time and rescue him from the Night King. If she had had her way, he’d have stayed in the crypts with her— or better yet, on a ship with his sister, alive and far, far away.

But Theon had wanted to fight.


	5. His Lady

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I want to fight for Winterfell, Lady Sansa.” If only he hadn't come.
> 
> Another memory, not three days earlier.

_“I want to fight for Winterfell, Lady Sansa.” His gaze left hers, skimming the old stone floor in his uncertainty. “If you’ll have me.”_

She’d wanted to laugh, she’d wanted to cry. She’d wanted to hurl herself at him— throw caution, appearance, decorum to the wintery wind…

Instead Sansa had forced herself to tamp down her excitement, swallow the joy that threatened to consume her, and simply nod her approval before crossing the hall to welcome him as any lady might her sworn servant— with a chaste, swift embrace.

But then… she’d melted into his arms. Nearly swooned into his warmth, much welcome to her in this drafty old castle, on the eve of their world’s worst winter. And after so long a separation— too long to think on, without sobbing outright.

Sansa had savored the briny scent that pervaded his clothing and curls: the former, fine as he’d worn in the days before the war, when he was merely her father’s squire, if a little travel-worn; the latter had regained their glossy lustre, even lightened a shade or two, no doubt thanks to his recent weeks in the sun, at sea.

She’d inhaled long and deep, closing her eyes to the world around them and the salt that brimmed in them. Allowing herself to forget, for one moment, the horror of her reality.

One stunned heartbeat later, Theon relaxed into her embrace. His arms found her waist and back, one hand curling around and over her shoulder blade, clutching her to him like something precious.

(She’d always held his heart in his hand, he’d confess at a later hour, in a more intimate moment. Not that any moment had ever felt as intimate as the one they made in that half-minute.)

Theon’s touch was gentle, but firm. New muscle flexed beneath quilted wools and linen, and plate metal shifted to accommodate his slightest movement. Faintly, Sansa could feel the embossed outline of a kraken, his house’s sign, find friction with the hard leather layers of her bodice. But it didn’t matter how much mock-armor she wore— the mere idea of Theon would always be lodged a little to the left of her sternum.

When his strong arms stilled, and she felt secure in his steady embrace at long last, Theon squeezed Sansa to him without hesitation or trepidation. He’d been as desperate for this reunion as she had, and with that knowledge, she smiled— her first true smile since she’d set the dogs on her rapist. The man from whom Theon had rescued her.

Not just rescued— set her free. Free to find her brother and sister, retake their ancestral home, and assume the mantle of Lady of Winterfell, a role that gave her power and pleasure, in seeing to the needs of the people of the North. Theon might as well have handed her her home.

Tears pricked at Sansa’s eyes and unwillingly she remembered her place— or rather, his. Theon was her dead father’s one-time squire, her bastard brother’s former best friend, the once meek servant of her happily murdered husband, and now a storm-weathered warrior who had sworn his sword to Winterfell— and its Lady.

Sansa drew in a deep breath, trying to capture as much of his salt-and-leather, simply masculine scent as she could, before she let her arms fall back to her sides. Instantly, Theon released her and, with a small, sad smile, stepped back until he stood a respectful distance from his new lady. Not that he hadn’t always been hers, not that he hadn’t served her before— when it mattered even more. But this morning, he’d pledged himself formally. In front of a witnesses, including a queen.

Theon knelt in the center of the hall, not far from Sansa’s feet. Unsheathing his sword, he offered the unadorned hilt to her. “My lady,” he said, bowing his head.

His murmur was her cue. Starting slightly, Sansa began the ancient rite with impatience, but as she spoke the words evoked an age-old and eternal solemnity. In the hush of the crowded hall, Sansa bound herself to Theon, and Theon to her. Not as a husband, nor as advisor; not even as a knight no longer errant. But as a simple soldier, a foreigner promised to serve and fight for her. From this day until his last.

Later, in the Godswood, she would pray that that second date be delayed until Death should find her, too.

The gods did not answer Sansa Stark's prayers, however— that was a lesson she'd learned not long ago, in this very castle's walls.


	6. A Funereal Flicker

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They two had never known a bed so warm— and oh, how she wished she could join him.
> 
> Sansa lights Theon's funeral pyre, but does either really leave the other?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the hiatus (depression). this is IRL Sansa, not imagined.

The soup they’d shared not two days before had burnt her tongue, but that was nothing now, compared to the blazing torch she held. Sweat clotted the fur lining her leather gloves, but Sansa was numb to its source. She cared only for the flames that would curl around his limbs, his body unmoved by the fire to come. She noticed only the heat as its waves warped her view of him, made his features swim when they ought to be still.

(Or maybe that was the work of her unshed tears, blinked back from the red rims of her eyes.)

 _Not ought_ , Sansa thought. _Ought not_. Theon ought not be dead, not when she still lived. He _ought_ to be standing by her side, alive. Sansa should not be suppressing tears, unshed, not for him, not so soon, not of pain.

Tears of joy, like those she’d loosed the day he showed up at her door. Tears of pride, swelling her chest, as he’d pledged his self and sword, forever hers. Tears of love, blooming in her eyes like blue winter roses, the very same she’d wept with him the night before.

But never, never, not for a thousand summers, should she be shipwrecked in grief, the sole survivor of a gale worse than any the Ironborn had ever known.

Sansa tried to her chest’s heaving, swallow her sobs, as she lowered the torch to light his pyre. Her arm shook; steadying it stole the last of her willpower, and she dropped the bundle of sticks by his side, stumbling back. Sansa froze a few steps from the pile of logs, not far enough for her safety. But she couldn’t make herself move as she watched the fire catch. Couldn’t tear herself away from the terrible sight, nor wake from what needed to reveal itself to be a nightmare— nothing real, nothing more.

A flicker of something else, something better than the black and burning reds, drew Sansa’s longing eye. Movement? _Was Theon yet alive?!_ A hand tugged her slackened wrist, a whisper in her ear told her it was time to move. Pulled out of fantasy by reality’s gloved grip, Sansa realized what she’d seen had not been life renewed.

Silver. She’d seen a flash of pure silver— not the green-grey glimmer of Theon’s opening eye. How silly of her, she chided herself absently, to forget for a moment what had been her farewell, a gift given mere moments ago. The catching pyre had lit up, illuminating Theon’s body in crashing waves of flame, and the light of that cursed halo caught the textured surface of a silver sigil. Sansa herself had slid the length of metal beneath the strap that ran diagonally across Theon’s battered chest plate. Tucked it lovingly under the blood- and salt-stained leather— a symbol of so many things, but between just the two of them, it signified her love.

Sworn in silence, at the foot of his funeral pyre. Sworn for ever, before gods and men. Three armies were witness, in that moment, without realizing it, to a vow that meant as much to Sansa as a crown. She intended to keep the one for as long as she kept the other— the length of her life, and whatever lay after.

Sansa’s eyes relinquished the molten silver of the wolf’s head, melting into the metal sheet that shielded his unbeating heart. They two had never known a bed so warm, and oh, how she wished she could join him. Sansa’s gaze trailed the contours of Theon’s chest, shoulder, exposed neck, at last alighting at his jaw. She ignored the hand on her upper arm, the insistent pull of the living world. Instead, she made a study of his face at rest.

He looked so much like himself, still and silent. But gone was the animation, the flush of colour from his cheeks, that shy smile not awarded to just anyone, the earnest expression of his wide and weary eyes. Where was _Theon_? There he lay. But he had gone, so very far away.

When he’d arrived at Winterfell for the last time, not one week prior, Theon had promised something to Sansa. He’d promised he’d never let anything happen to her. He swore he’d leave her alone again. Yet here she was. Without him. Theon had left Sansa alone, again. He’d let his death happen to her. Hadn’t he?

Shivering with grief and rage and lonely fear, she tore her loving gaze from his face and turned on her heel. Steeling herself, Sansa left the pyre behind her. She walked briskly away from the dead and returned to stand among the living. But as she did, she wondered to which world she better belonged. Whom she loved more, for whose fleeting warmth she would forever long.

So many ghosts seemed now to glide in and out of her mind, alive along the aching lines of memory. So many loved, and so many lost… But maybe not lost, merely dead?

It was then, as she took her place beside her surviving siblings, that she heard— or maybe remembered— his voice. She didn’t know, couldn’t tell; it sounded so real, so true. A mere whisper, carried away by the smoke of the pyres, whose sickening scent seemed to flood her senses. A simple, single plea.

_Don’t leave me, my lady._


	7. Fortress

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sansa storms out of the hall, and Theon follows her. What if this ice queen let her heart thaw?
> 
> A bittersweet memory.

Sansa was the first to leave the war room, slipping away into the shadows. Shoulders back, head held high, she walked with an even gait along two corridors. To the onlooker, or lagging follower, she was the picture of an unaffected ruler. But when she’d put enough distance between herself and the hall, Sansa turned a sharp left down a dark passage that she knew would eventually lead to her rooms.

Not that she much cared where she went, or when she arrived at her prefixed destination. The only thing she felt in that moment was fury. Fury and fear. And something far more fragile, something sweet and rare that she dared not risk again.

Fueled by those emotions, which had threatened to surface for an unseemly, unstrategic instant in the war room, Sansa stormed her way through the deserted castle. It was late; the meeting had taken hours. No one was present to hear her boots click across cold stone. No one was there to see the hot tears trickle down her white cheeks. Not that the sconces would illuminate such details in the dark.

Sansa scoffed at that. Always hidden, never honest. So in love, and it was too late. She wondered briefly whether she had Ramsay, Littlefinger, Cersei, or herself to thank for turning her into an ice queen. A lonely fool. Or maybe that was just the North in her— untrusting, unyielding, unwilling to kneel to a foreign conquerer or simply admit to her own emotions. _Seven hells,_ she could not bear it.

At last, the Lady of Winterfell arrived at her chambers. The door was locked, as always, but she quickly made use of the key. Pushing open the heavy oak, Sansa saw that a fire had been lit for her, but the antechamber was otherwise empty. The maids were well accustomed, by now, to her desire for absolute privacy.

She wanted to be alone, always. Her bedroom, even the sitting room in which she now stood, were hers and hers alone. No one was welcome here. Not even Sansa, or so it felt tonight.

That was the funny thing about fortresses— sometimes, in constructing them, you shut yourself out, too.

Sansa stood on the threshold and surveyed the empty antechamber, the firelight flickering into relief its muted finery, before stepping into the slight warmth. Here, in the silence of her own rooms, her rage and grief had anything but abated. Sansa slammed the door behind her. She didn’t even turn to lock and bolt it, as was her nightly ritual, and therefore didn’t notice when it hit the frame hard and swung back open by a foot.

Sansa froze, however, her hand on her knife, as a familiar voice murmured, “My lady?”

She whirled around. “Theon!” Her hand fell from the dagger’s pommel. “You scared me half to death.” Cutting through his apology, she demanded, “What are you doing here?”

But even as she spoke, the accusation threading through her voice was joined by joy and a kind of sated, yet still unsated, desire.

She wanted him here. She wanted to be, for lack of a better word, not alone.

With him.

Theon seemed to sense her sudden realization, because his posture relaxed and when he spoke it was sincere but lacking conviction. “I can go…”

“ _No!_ ”

The word came too fast, too strong, and Theon flinched a little at its force. “I— Come in, please.” He obeyed her, hesitating for only the merest second when she commanded him to close the door behind him. “I don’t want to let the draft in,” she half-lied.

The full truth was that she wanted privacy, to be _properly_ alone with him.

After a minute’s mesmerized silence, a log fell in the enormous grate, and Theon’s stormy green eyes snapped from hers to the roaring fire. “I came to check on you,” he said at last, a whisper nearly lost in the wind. “After the council— I didn’t want you to be alone. Afraid.”

“I’m not afraid,” Sansa bit out, but they both knew it was a lie. “I’m angry.” That, too, was only a fragment of the truth.

He’d read her right from the start, as always. Theon knew her better than herself.

He let her falsehood fade in the crackling of the fire. Patiently, he stood before the bolted door and waited for her to speak the truth— voice her darkest, dearest desires.

But Sansa was too weak, to cowardly to answer his unspoken cue. She hedged, offering her silent guest a glass of wine, a fireside chair.

He declined every one of her distractions, and simply gazed, his green eyes gentle, at the scared girl standing two strides from him.

Sansa couldn’t stand the silence, or her own nervous fidgeting anymore. Her anxiety turned to anger, as it had in the hall before.

“What the hell were you thinking?” She demanded at last, her voice high and reedy and not what a ruler’s should be. But neither was her question.

“When I followed you to your rooms?”

She shook her head impatiently, although she craved that answer as well. “No. When you pledged your sword to Winterfell?”

“To you,” he corrected, quietly.

“To me!” She cried, flinging her hands up in frustration. “Why would you _do_ that?”

“You know why.”

“You could have been _safe_!”

“I promised never to leave your side.” He was referring to their pact while escaping Ramsey, the words they’d spoken at the top of the wall.

Sansa ceased her pacing and turned to face him. “But you already did.”

It wasn’t a fair shot, but she wasn’t trying to be fair. She was trying to cope with the pent up anger, the acrid fear, and above all the all-consuming _love_ that threatened to thaw even her frozen heart.

Far more than her heart, she realized, drinking in the secretly welcome sight of him…

Theon colored at her accusation, but she felt no satisfaction at having hit her mark. Sansa didn’t want to hurt him— just the opposite. She wanted him to be safe, and happy, and whole. But she also wanted to be near him, which was why she lunged for him when he turned to reopen the door.

“You know why I had to leave you at the Wall, Lady Sansa. You know it was for the best.” His words were a cracked whisper, and she stepped closer still, until her hand hovered above his.

Seeing her gloved fingers there, inches away from his, Theon froze. Then, slowly, he let his hand fall from the bolt, leaving it securely in place. He was silent, still, waiting for her to make the next move.

He’d always cede control to her, let her set the pace and tone. Not that she’d ever tested this theory with him in bed— oh god, the very idea of it set her soul aglow— but somehow Sansa just knew that Theon would always bow to her will.

Which meant that if she told him to go, now, and never return… he would go.

And he would be safe! He would escape this war with death and winter! He would be released from his oath, set free to sail back home— he would go, if she commanded it. He would do as he was told.

And suddenly, stupidly, Sansa could not do it. She could not let him leave her side.

She needed him like she needed oxygen, or a fire’s warmth on a winter night. His memory was the flicker of life within her, the spark that kept her heart beating— alive.

And if having him here meant his risking death… she was still too selfish to send him away. Too scared to lose him again.

Because in this moment, her breasts nearly brushing against the blades of his back, this ice queen wanted to be thawed by him. She was more afraid now, in this fragile second, of losing Theon to the night’s distance, than she was of facing its frozen King.

It was a foolish decision, and she’d sorely regret it, but right this minute she could _not_ regret it. And so, she whispered a word.

“ _Wait._ ”

And lowered her arm until his gloved hand carried hers.

Theon’s exhale was uneven, and beneath its tan, the back of his neck suffused a blush. “My lady…” His answering whisper was hoarse, hungry, hesitant. “Are you sure?”

Sansa nodded, forgetting he couldn’t see her face. Then she spoke in the affirmative. Her voice grew stronger with every word, and although her heart raced, she could feel the unfraying of her nerves.

“I want you.”

Theon spun around until they faced one another, his eyes wide as wooden shields.

“I want you safe, I want you happy, I want you here. With me.”

Hastily, she shed her gloves, then raised one shaking hand to cup his cheek.

“Be with me,” she murmured, breathing in his briny scent.

“Always,” he answered, before taking her lips in a slow and sweetbitter kiss.


End file.
